Lady Gaga has been kind of M.I.A. since her labral tear while on her Born This Way Ball back in February, but she’s making a full return to music and spilling the deets on what really happened with her injury.

She announced her next single “Applause” off her anticipated fourth album ARTPOP and gave us the cover art to help tell the story behind the track. Opening up in her first interview since her injury to Women’s Wear Daily, Gaga had one person – or group of people – in mind while putting “Applause” together – her Little Monsters! “In my heart of hearts as I was writing, I knew that if I asked [the fans] to cheer for me before I sang or if I alluded to the fact that they would cheer for me before I sang…They do that all that time for me; before I even open my mouth, the fans start cheering for me,” she said.

“And so this exclamation, ‘Give me that thing that I love. Give it to me. I’m ready, start the music,’” she continued. “I’m from New York. I’ve worked since I was a five-year-old to be a performer. All my life, I deserve to be here. I’m ready.”

We all remember when Gaga announced that she would be stepping away from the spotlight after suffering a labral tear in her leg while on stage. And while we figured she’d undergo surgery, work on music and be fine, she revealed that it was actually way worse than we thought – she actually had a broken hip! “Nobody knew, and I haven’t even told the fans yet,” she said.

She continued, “But when we got all the MRIs finished before I went to surgery there were giant craters, a hole in my hip the size of a quarter, and the cartilage was just hanging out the other side of my hip. I had a tear on the inside of my joint and huge breakage. The surgeon told me that if I had done another show I might have needed a full hip replacement. I would have been out at least a year, maybe longer.”